Originally posted by Angus
Now Izzie, you are one insulent little twit.
Are you calling Gunther Rall himself in as an urban legend for starters?
He is a LIVING legend, and I had the honor of talking to him yesterday.
Yet, you choose to promote your usual garbage, and highly selectED data, although some of it may be quite authentic.
To be honest, you deserve a bloody spanking lesson
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Angie, you got your period today, right?

This is not really going round and round since it is basically broadt times width times height. Total value is cubics.
I have had a walkaround with a 109 and several Spitfires, along with some cockpit peeking. So I don't need to refer with a video.
You present Stiegler. I asked Rall. Belive what you want, but my final conclusion is from firstly my own eyes and then by asking Rall, that THE SPITFIRE COCKPIT IS DEFINATELY SOMEWHAT ROOMIER THAN THE COCKPIT OF A 109.
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Ok, so basically your say after making numerous claims of which you backed up none, that no matter what, you are right. Classy!
BTW, did Stiegler have some flying hours in the Spitfire?
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Well most likely he did, because it was stated he flew and liked it.
Yes, you and Niklas actually. I think I have some pictures of the frontal area from you, I will look it up.
OMG, could it have been that the Spitfire had smaller frontal area?????
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Yeah angie, you will look it up and present it, I am hearing that for the 1000th time...
The P51 cockpit is narrow and deep, and long. About as wide as the cockpit of a 109. Did you ever have a look at a P51 cockpit up close? nnaaaaa you bloody well didn't!
Bloody I did that. Maybe I can even look up the pics I took, about 2 years ago.
Here`s a good picture on how long the 109 cocpit exactly was. A Spitfire cocpit was about half long than that.

I let you guess what airplane is being described in the following report by RAE :
At low altitudes, even with the hot air shut off completely, the cockpit is uncomfortably warm. This is due to hot air coming from the radiator unit, as the top of the radiator shell is exposed to the interior of the fuselage. Air leaking through the fairing duct and various holes for the coolant pipes, combined with the convection currents from the radiator, sweep upwards striking the pilot in the back of the neck before passing out through the ventilation louvers.
The head room provided is inadequate. Even with the seat fully down, and average sized pilot feels very cramped. No undue noise or vibration was experienced under any conditions of flight. But why guess the plane if we can ask the USN too?

You might as well accept these facts.
Why would Rall describe it in comparison of the 109 as a "Saloon" with superb view?Rall described the P-47s cocpit as a saloon, as did USAAF pilots compared to the P-51.
3rd Round. The slats:
Rall liked the slats, except in rough combat. Without the slats, the 109's takeoff and landing speeds would have been very high.
However, as he stated, in a ROUGH turn, the outboard slat would deploy very suddenly, snapping the aircraft. So in rough combat while riding the stall, they could interfere, sending you down into a spin-beginning.
In rough, sudden turn, the an plane without slats will only stall at a much higher AoA. A plane without slats in a rough turn will tighten up well before that, and probably fall into a spin. The Spit did just that, I have numerous reports from the RAF which deal with that problem. And once a Spit fell into a spin, it was a death trap for novices, it was VERY hard to recover it from a spin. Unlike the 109, which recovered itself just by releasing the controls...
Now I must say that I find the slat idea and design a superb idea. Bear in mind though that leading edge slats create less lift than say the better sorts of flaps. Still quite impressive. But I do NOT challenge Rall's words on that. Come on you avacado, the guy has 275 kills in a 109, so when he tells about both merits and vices of the 109, I honestly take his words as very much more credible than yours.
Leading edge slats give more lift than anything else at high angles of attack, simply because such AoA would not be possible w/o slats, the critical AoA where the plane snap stalls would be much less, regarding of wingloading etc..
Which makes the Spitfire loose out again, since it had neither combat flaps, neither slats. The 109 had them both, and it`s flaps could be lowered at rather high airspeeds.
But if you are so fond of Rall, here`s what he said on the 109 :
"
'The 109? That was a dream, the non plus ultra. Just like the F-14 of today. Of course, everyone wanted to fly it as soon as possible. I was very proud when I converted to it.'
-Major Gunther Rall, 275 victoriesBut if we are at qouting the 'legends', how what the all time aces said on the Bf 109
G. Yep, let`s see what Hartmann said on the Gustav, which was according to some, 'very hard to handle'...
"Manouvering was easy with it, and it was simple to handle. It accelerated up within moments, if you put into a dive. It proved to be good in aerobatics, with the 109 the corkscrewing was a simple matter, and one could come out of a spin easily."
I also seen just recently a text by a Yugoslavian pilot who flew both the Yak 3 and the 109G. He praised the 109 for it`s simple handling over the Yak 3, too.
Mark Hanna describes the 109s stall characteristics as follows :
"As CL max is reached the leading edge slats deploy - together if the ball is in the middle, slightly asymmetrically if you have any slip on. The aircraft delights in being pulled into hard manuevering turns at these slower speeds. As the slats pop out you feel a slight "notching" on the stick and you can pull more until the whole airframe is buffeting quite hard. A little more and you will drop a wing, but you have to be crass to do it unintentionally."Southwood describes very much the same, ie. VERY good flying characteristics, plenty of warning for novice pilots, instant recovery from stall.... 'a plane for Experten only, eh?' Pardon me, but there was possibly no other plane that tolerated pilot errors in the air better than the 109.
The idle power stall characteristics of the aircraft are very benign and affected little by undercarriage and flap position. Stalling warning is a slight wing rock with the stick floating right by about 2 inches. This occurs 10klph before the stall. The stall itself is a left wing drop through about 15 degrees with a slight nose drop, accompanied by a light buffet. All controls are effective up to the stall, and recovery is instant on moving the stick forward. Stall speeds are 155kph clean and 140kph with gear and flap down. In a turn at 280kphwith display power set, stall warning is given by light buffet at 3g, and the stall occurs at 3.5g with the inside wing dropping. Again, recovery is instant on easing the stick forward. One interesting feature is the leading edge slats. When these deploy at low speeds or in a turn, a 'clunk' can be heard and felt, but there is no disturbance to the aircraft about any axis. I understand that the Bf109E rolled violently as the slats deployed, and I am curious to know the difference to the Gustav that caused this.